Uncategorized
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Letters
Call for caution “Bar codes may check out next” (SN: 4/24/10, p. 14) describes a new ink that would enable a full grocery cart to be quickly checked out electronically. Hurrah? Undoubtedly the amount of radio frequency per package would be minimal. However, if much of our food were handled that way, and people used […]
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In synthetic life, the can is as important as the Coke
A paper published online May 20 in Science touted the creation of the world’s first synthetic cell by researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute who assembled a bacterial genome from scratch and used it to reprogram an existing organism (Page 5). The accomplishment is a major advance in the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, […]
- Animals
Sex, crickets and videotape
Security cameras focused on insects in the wild are looking at whether lab science has gotten the singing, mating and fighting right.
- Humans
2010 Kavli Prizes awarded
The 2010 Kavli laureates in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience are named for work on powerful telescopes, neuron chatter molecules, building structures with DNA and a method for moving individual atoms.
- Health & Medicine
New angle on treating sepsis
An enzyme that plays a role in the lethal inflammatory disorder may be a suitable drug target, early tests show.
- Humans
Tracing Jewish roots
An analysis of the entire genome of Jewish people shows Middle Eastern roots and traces ancestry across the globe.
- Animals
Diversified portfolio yields benefit for salmon stocks
Local diversity keeps sockeye from going bust every few years, a study finds.
- Life
Seaweed genome reveals tools for multicellular lifestyle
Genetic blueprints of a brown alga reveal adaptations to changing tides and may give clues for to evolution of more complex life.
- Planetary Science
Jupiter’s crash of ’09
The body that crashed into Jupiter last summer was likely an asteroid, and such impacts might occur as frequently as every 10 to 15 years, new studies suggest.
- Chemistry
Vodka’s bonds may influence taste
Differences in vodka brands reflect structural variations in cages of water molecules encasing ethanol, new research suggests.
- Space
Neutrino quick-change artist caught in the act
A transformation from one ‘flavor’ to another confirms the elusive elementary particles have mass and suggests a need for new physics.
- Archaeology
Jamestown settlers’ trash confirms hard times
Analyses of discarded oyster shells confirm a deep drought during the Virginia colony’s earliest years.
